Prop 50: Californians pass redistricting measure that helps Democrats flip up to five House seats | California

Voters in California on Tuesday approved a high-stakes redistricting measure that could determine whether Donald Trump and Republicans maintain full control of the federal government in next year’s midterm elections.

It was a decisive victory for Democrats in deep-blue California, who are trying to counter a gerrymander in Texas designed to create new safe Republican districts at the behest of the US president. Voters who approved the measure chose to scrap the work of California’s independent redistricting commission and temporarily accept maps drawn by the state legislature to help Democrats win five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gavin Newsom and Democrats framed the measure as a way to protect US democracy from Trump’s “destructive” presidency. In response, opponents offered a mixed message; Republicans alternatively attacked Newsom and praised the work of the independent map-making panel.

Democrats hold 43 of the state’s 52 House seats. The new maps are being drawn to help Democrats flip five of the state’s nine Republican-held seats. It could also help Democrats win multiple swing seats.

The five seats could be decisive in the fight to regain control of the House of Representatives, where the decision will be decided by razor-thin margins. The party that wins the majority will shape the final years of Trump’s second term in the White House; whether he continues to pursue the agenda of a unified Republican Congress or faces resistance, investigations, and possibly even a third impeachment attempt.

Historically, the president’s party loses ground in midterm elections. According to recent polls, Americans generally disapprove of the way Trump used his powers and the job he did while in office. Still, Republicans have the upper hand in the arms race that has spread across the country as California moves forward with its retaliatory gerrymander.

Trump has persuaded several Republican states, including Missouri and North Carolina, to approve the maps, while others are poised to follow suit. Some Democratic states have announced countermeasures, but California’s maps are the first major response to Republicans’ unprecedented efforts.

Going into election day, Democrats were unusually confident, with California’s governor telling donors to “stop donating” after the Yes campaign largely angered rallying groups working against the ballot initiative.

But victory was not guaranteed. Early polls showed hesitancy among Californians to overrule voter-approved independent commissions. Although polls show independent redistricting remains popular in the Golden State, Trump is clearly not on board, and voters angry with him have fueled the “yes” campaign.

The opposition had largely retreated in the final weeks of the costly campaign, one of the most expensive in terms of votes in the state’s history. According to the California secretary of stateSupporters of the ballot measure raised nearly $170 million; that was roughly twice as much as rivals, which raised about $84 million.

Newsom said late last month that the campaign had raised $38 million from about 1.2 million “small-dollar donations,” in addition to about $15 million from the Democratic Super Pac, $10 million from a George Soros-funded lobbying group and about $4 million from the state teachers union. Billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer spent $12 million supporting the proposal.

Leading Democrats from Barack Obama to congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have rallied behind the measure, while national Republicans have mostly stayed on the sidelines. Trump had been unusually quiet for much of the campaign. Hours before the polls opened on Tuesday morning, Trump shared on Truth Social, without evidence, that the voting process in California was a “massive fraud” and that the state was under “very serious civil and criminal scrutiny” for its system that allows all registered voters to vote by mail. Trump did not provide detailed information about which institutions were investigating.

The White House press secretary later repeated Trump’s baseless claims that voting in California was “rigged” and said the administration was still working on an executive order that Trump telegraphed earlier this year that aimed to ban mail-in voting. This move, which voting rights experts say is almost legally impossible.

“It is absolutely true that there was fraud in the California election,” Leavitt said. “It’s just a fact. It’s just a fact.”

He offered no evidence when asked by Liz Landers of PBS News: “Fraudulent ballots mailed in the names of others and illegal aliens who should not be voting in American elections. There are countless examples, and we would be happy to present them.”

Leavitt said the White House is working on an executive order that would ban mail-in voting in California.

Trump’s justice department had deployed federal election officials to monitor polling places in five California counties; State officials said the move would intimidate voters. In response, California sent its own monitors to monitor federal monitors.

The success of Proposition 50 dwarfed the blitzkrieg campaign in which Newsom, House Democrats and state lawmakers put together the proposal known as the “Election Rigging Interference Act” earlier this summer, sending the gerrymander into a dizzying pace through the legislature.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California and one of the Trump critics who advocated for the commission’s creation, harshly criticized Proposition 50 but never formally campaigned against it. Meanwhile, Charles Munger Jr., a wealthy Republican donor and longtime supporter of independent redistricting, has poured more than $30 million into stopping a return to the “evils of partisan gerrymandering.”

The new maps will be valid for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 election cycles, at which point the state’s independent commission will continue its work on drawing congressional boundaries based on the next census.

On Tuesday, voters waited in line to vote at the Cochran Avenue Baptist church in Los Angeles.

“It’s time for Americans to say, ‘This is not right and it’s unacceptable.'” “It’s like we’re going back to when they said we were three-fifths of a human being,” said church pastor Charles Johnson, who voted yes on Proposition 50. [Texas redistricting] It is an isolated incident, no, it is an attack. Donald Trump says, ‘I can do what I want, I can make myself king, and you’ll just have to reach out and accept it.'”

Abené Clayton contributed to this report from Los Angeles